However, officials say the pro-Russian Patriotic Electoral Bloc (BEP) and the more opaque Alternativa opposition bloc stand to gain from a campaign of disinformation and bribery orchestrated from Moscow.
“Russia is pulling out all the stops to tip this election,” Moldovan National Security Adviser Stanislav Secrieru told POLITICO ahead of the vote. “We’re seeing unprecedented efforts: more money to buy votes, more AI-driven disinformation amplified by troll networks, and more resources dedicated to orchestrating street violence.”
The first results are primarily from small towns and villages, with ballots from bigger cities and overseas polling stations counted later. At 9.30 p.m. local time (8.30 p.m. Brussels) the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) will present preliminary results. From then on, results will be updated through the night, with results from larger cities and diaspora votes coming in around 11 p.m. local time.
Throughout Sunday, bomb threats were reported at polling stations abroad — including one that forced the evacuation of Moldova’s embassy in Brussels. “Police report intel on groups planning unrest in Chișinău starting tonight and during tomorrow’s protest called by the pro-Russian Patriotic bloc,” Secreriu later wrote online.
Last year, a referendum on EU membership narrowly passed and liberal President Maia Sandu secured a second term in office despite votes marred by allegations of Kremlin election meddling. In both cases, ballots from the hundreds of thousands of Moldovans living abroad — many in EU countries — were critical in swinging the result.
Dorina Baltag, a researcher at the Institute for Diplomacy and International Affairs and co-founder of diaspora group Noroc Olanda, said their votes would again be “of critical importance, both numerically and symbolically.”